Monday, December 14, 2015

Suman SahaiIt is high time that people
with divergent views on GM crops sat across the table with representatives of
government ministries and MPs to debate which kind of GM technology, if any,
would be in the interest of India’s
farmers and consumers

Recent developments in the saga of genetically modified (GM) crops have begun
to reveal the fault lines of this technology. Not so long ago we had the
whitefly attack on the Bt cotton crop in Punjab
and Haryana causing devastating losses to farmers. Now we have the chairman of
the board of directors at the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) conveying
NDDB’s decision not to support the development of GM mustard any further.
According to a report by Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, the NDDB has already spent
Rs 50 crore on research for developing GM mustard, but is now withdrawing from
the project.

Both the Bt cotton episode and NDDB’s decision on GM mustard illuminate the
problems inherent in radical new technologies like genetic engineering. They
point out yet again that technology does not exist in a vacuum, that whereas
biosafety is a key issue, it remains difficult to resolve. But apart from the
vexed issue of biosafety, which is increasingly better understood even if not
always complied with, is the demonstration that there are social and economic
aspects to such technologies apart from the scientific ones.

The large scale failure of Bt cotton showed us that Bt technology is not
what it is made out to be, a panacea for pest control. It is only a limited
approach to controlling one pest that is programmed to fail in a country like India where
pests are of many different kinds and usually intense in their infestations.
Apart from the failure of Bt technology to do what it claims to do, that is
control pests, the recent Bt cotton failure reveals another fault line. How
will liability be fixed for the failure? Who is going to be held responsible
for the massive losses incurred by the farmers in Punjab
and Haryana? Under which law will you hold the technology providers, Monsanto
in this case and their partner seed companies, liable for the damage caused by
a failed technology?

Gene Campaign has been pointing out the need for a national law on liability
and redress ever since GM technology became the favourite of government
agencies. And scientists in public sector research institutions began to sing
in chorus with policymakers who couldn’t wait to make Monsanto happy by
aggressively promoting Bt technology. Monsanto owns the Bt gene and anyone who
wants to use it has to pay licence fees to Monsanto.

Gene Campaign has also constantly underlined the fact that adopting a
radical new technology (which scientists acknowledge has built-in dangers),
without a foolproof legal framework within which the technology should be
considered for adoption, was foolhardy and dangerous. It is irresponsible and
unethical to expose farmers to new technologies without ensuring that they are
adequately protected in case the technology fails. Countries do this by
enacting laws governing liability and redress. So that when a technology goes
wrong, the technology provider is legally liable to make good the losses.

In the case of the NDDB withdrawing support for Deepak Pental’s GM mustard,
there is a clear realisation on the part of NDDB that adopting a technology has
social and economic implications. Here it is not a case of whether the science
is clean or not, it could be either. The question here is whether tagging the
GM label is going to benefit NDDB’s product line or hurt it.

The NDDB board probably realised that linking GM mustard with all its
controversies to one of their more successful products, cold pressed natural
mustard oil, was like shooting themselves in the foot. The NDDB needs GM
mustard like it needs a hole in the head. There is sufficient mustard being
produced in the country and the NDDB is selling its mustard oil very
successfully. Why would it want to hang an albatross around the neck of a
product that was flying off the shelves anyway?

What advantage could GM mustard possibly bring the NDDB or the consumer? It
would not be cheaper, it would not be more nutritious or have better keeping
qualities and it would look the same as the natural mustard oil. On the other
hand, “tainted” with the GM label, many consumers were likely to back off,
affected by the awareness that GM products could be unsafe. The NDDB gains
nothing from getting linked to the GM brand, it could lose a lot.

Owing to the last few years of discussion on the pros and cons of GM
technology, and the hotly debated question of the safety of GM foods, there is
far greater consumer awareness about the issue now than there was a few years
ago. In addition to this, the refusal of technology regulators to be
transparent and share information with the public has led to increasing
distrust of GM technology and a greater likelihood of the public contesting its
adoption.

Against this backdrop, an effective advocacy campaign by activists succeeded
in showing the NDDB that supporting research on GM mustard and hence linking it
with their popular Dhara brand of mustard oil could put a question mark on the
latter’s market acceptance. The NDDB seems to have realised that it made
absolutely no sense to martyr the Dhara brand. So it disassociated itself from
research on GM mustard and discontinued its support.

For too long policymakers related to agriculture and food have insisted on
hearing just one voice, that of the providers of GM technology and the
scientists who have blindly pushed for it as the answer to all of India’s
agriculture problems. Perhaps activists have sometimes been more shrill than
necessary, but they have always attempted to highlight public concerns. It is
high time that people with divergent views on GM crops sat across the table
with representatives of government ministries and members of Parliament to
debate which kind of GM technology, if any, would be in the interest of India’s farmers
and consumers.

About Me

Dr. Suman Sahai, who has had a distinguished scientific career in the field of genetics, is a recipient of the Padma Shri,the Borlaug Award, Outstanding Woman Achiever awards, the BirbalSahni Gold Medal and the Order of the Golden Ark .
Dr. Sahai is founder Chairperson of the Gene Campaign which is a leading research and advocacy organization, working on issues relating to food, nutrition and livelihoods. She has published extensively on science and policy issues and is a member of several national policy forums on scientific research and education, biodiversity and environment, biotechnology and bioethics as well as intellectual property rights.
Dr Sahai chaired India’s Planning Commission Task Force on ‘Agro biodiversity and Genetically Engineered Organisms’, for the XIth Plan. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Biodiversity Board , the Expert Committee on Biotechnology Policy and the Bioethics Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research.She has served on the Research Advisory Committees of national scientific institutions.
Dr Sahai can be reached at www.genecampaign.org and mail@genecampaign.org